Consequences
by Joyfulldreams
Summary: Tony Zucco escaped from prison in a giant prison break, and Sportsmaster had something to do with it. The team has a new mission in LA, but Robin is tense and irritated. Artemis sees a new side of Robin when he suddenly thirsts for revenge. No pairings.
1. Prologue

Tony Zucco was not having a good day.

Well, you try having a good day in prison. Pretty much every day sucked. Orange was not his color, the food and accommodations were terrible, and his cellmate just couldn't appreciate a suave con-man and top-dog mobster like himself. And the worst part was that he knew he wasn't getting out of this any time soon, because after that trapeze act he'd offed and getting caught by the Batman, his sentence was probably for life.

Ugh.

All thoughts of escape were drilled out for this week, too. Tony'd been thinking of trying to get out somehow, since this place wasn't high-security or anything like Arkham Asylum or Belle Rev. Nope, just an ordinary prison with ordinary guards and ordinary convicts. Until the convicts became not-so-ordinary, that is.

You see, some high-profile guy, busted for drug dealing or something, was brought here instead of Arkham since he was obviously sane (although Tony wouldn't say so. The guy apparently wore some kind of retarded mask when he did his business. And he had a stupid crook name: Sports-something-pansy-like-that), although he was only here temporarily, until they could transfer him to a high-security prison outside of Gotham. But temporary or not, the security was suddenly upped to unbelievable amounts, and poor Tony couldn't fantasize about busting out anymore.

Talk about a sucky day, and soon a sucky night having to listen to his cellmate's ungodly snoring. Tony and some other inmates were guided by the prison guards to their cells, and soon he was left (almost) by himself to try and rest this horrible day away.

However, this was not to be. After what only felt like a few minutes of sleep, which was in actuality a few hours, a huge commotion of noise, alarms, shouts, and running feet startled Tony out of his sleep. The entire prison was in a complete uproar, and his cellmate was nowhere to be seen. However, his cell door was wide open, and as if he would miss this chance to get the hell out of here and back to a semi-normal life!

Tony ran out of his cell and saw a huge crowd of orange jumpsuits all doing as he was: escaping. So it was a prison-break! And just when he thought something like this would be impossible! Talk about luck! He ran down the hall, planning to blend in with the crowd and hopefully escape with them. That turned out to be a bogus plan, though, because the guards and GPD went straight for the big groups.

He was too smart for them, though, so before the cops could drag him back to his cell, he used his diminutive height (well, compared to most of the other inmates, at least…) to quietly slip away.

It was actually pretty easy to find his way out of the prison, avoiding guards and inmates alike. But he wasn't quite out of the prison yard yet when he got a funny feeling in his gut. And Tony always trusted his gut, so he quickly found a place to hide behind some storage crates, though what from, he had no clue.

That was quickly answered by the sound of fluttering capes, and when Tony stole a glance from his hidey-hole, he was able to see the familiar strides of the Batman and his Robin.

Besides keeping himself from freaking the fuck out, since these were the guys who originally caught him, he had to admit it had been a while since he'd seen them. They were on the news sometimes, sure, but only sometimes, and Tony didn't bother watching every goddamn day. Robin had a new costume, much less bright and it actually covered his legs. He could pass for intimidating if he wanted to, but at the moment he looked more irritated. As opposed to his partner, who looked like he was ready to rip out someone's spine.

In a good mood, then?

"How many of the inmates have got out?" Robin asked in irritation as they coordinated themselves.

"A lot," Batman replied.

"And we aren't catching them…why?" Robin asked as what looked like a bright holographic screen suddenly popped up over his arm. Since when did the kid have toys like that?

"The police have got it covered," Batman said. Robin didn't appear to believe him. "We have a date with someone else tonight,"

"It's Sportsmaster, isn't it? This is all him?" Robin kept on going at his holographic-thingy, as the two caped crusaders walked through the prison yard, passing by where Tony was hiding. "I knew there was a reason he allowed himself to get caught like that, but all for a prison break? What's his angle?"

"The Shadows definitely have some part in this," Batman said. "Though I doubt this is all just to retrieve Sportsmaster before he's moved to a higher-security prison,"

They were nearly gone past him, and Tony was straining his ears to hear the rest of their conversation. "Security's motion sensors looking pretty suspicious," Tony could almost hear a smirk in his voice, "Now why would there be three people running to the middle of the prison, instead of out?"

"I think you know," Batman said. "We have his location. Whatever is going down tonight, we're stopping it."

"Except for the whole, you know, prisoners-escaping thing," Robin joked. "GPD has _totally_ got that covered."

The two heroes were finally dashing out of sight, and Tony didn't wait to hear Robin's snort of mirth before high-tailing it out of there to freedom. Running out of the prison felt pretty anti-climactic, but Tony was trying desperately to find some way out of Gotham before he got caught by the cops.

"And where do you think you're going?" said a voice from behind him. Tony jumped out of his skin and, though he wouldn't admit it, nearly pissed himself.

"S-stay back!" Tony yelled, grabbing a stick of wood that he saw lying on the ground. He whirled around with his pathetic weapon, ready to face off with the GPD and their fancy guns.

"…in that terribly bright orange jumpsuit?" the voice finished. And it was definitely _not_ a cop. It was obviously a girl, with matted black-brown hair sticking out in all directions, wearing what looked like a green kimono, and a white and red mask that looked rather cat-like in appearance. And he had to admit, she had nice legs. "Orange is definitely not you're color, and not very convenient for sneaking around at night, wouldn't you say?"

The way she talked sounded like she was either flirting with him or talking down to him, but she looked too terrifying to decide whether he liked that or not. "Wh-whaddya mean? Whaddya want with me?"

"Oh, don't try and act all tough with a stick of wood in your hands," she definitely sounded like she was flirting with him, "here." She threw a duffle bag that she had been holding, which landed on the ground in front of him.

Despite his best judgment, Tony dropped his stick and looked into the bag. Inside were a gun and a set of clothes.

"Wha…?"

"Take them," the girl said. "We'll help you get faaar away from Gotham, with protection. You'll be out of here and able to start your new, happy life within a week or two," she approached him quickly, before he could react, and tantalizingly lifted his chin up to her masked face with her finger. "How's that sound?"

Tony nodded.

* * *

><p>So, my first ever story on FF. This was something I prompted, but am actually filling, on the YJ Anon Meme. I have some other fills there that I might put up here...<p>

This won't be a huge thing, maybe a few chapters. Nothing particularly amazing, I don't think, but I strive to at least let it be well-written and make sense! So I'm interested to hear what you guys think might be going on.


	2. High Strung

Robin was headed towards the Gotham Zeta Teleporter, and he was _not_ in a good mood. The dust from the jailbreak three nights previous had finally started to settle, and he didn't like it _one bit_. Not only did the dynamic duo just barely stop Sportsmaster and the other two Shadow assassins from stealing vital government intel from the prison, but all three assassins got away and nearly killed quite a few people. They still didn't know _what_ they stopped, exactly, because it was obvious they hadn't really saved the day. Sportmaster and countless prison inmates all escaped and were nowhere to be found in Gotham, though the Commissioner and the GPD were doing their best to search.

But what had Robin in the worst possible mood he could be in? Turns out that the prison in question had been holding Tony Zucco, and Zucco was on the list of inmates that had managed to escape and were now missing and at large.

He had probably been walking through the same halls as his family's murderer. And he'd slipped _right by him_.

As soon as he'd found out, Robin had wanted to do nothing more than drop everything and scour the globe for Zucco until he found him and gave that piece of scum what he deserved. But of course, Robin couldn't go on his own, and Batman had duties in Gotham, to the Justice League, and countless other escaped inmates to worry about besides Zucco. Not to mention Bruce Wayne was still the very busy CEO of Wayne Tech. and had absolutely no reason or excuse to be leaving Gotham at this time.

If Robin were any younger, any less mature, any less responsible or well-trained, he would have said 'screw you, Batman' and left. Abandoned school, the team, all obligations, just to find this one guy. He wouldn't allow Tony Zucco the opportunity to victimize other families, other_ people_, or give that bastard the freedom he liked after what he'd done. No way.

But Robin was smarter than that, and knew that that would have been the most selfish, stupid, dangerous, and not to mention pointless thing he could do. Batman was investigating into Zucco's and all of the escaped inmates' whereabouts, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to make it go faster.

In the now, though, Robin had obligatory training with the Team tonight and was actually kind of looking forward to the opportunity to exercise and beat out his frustrations. And maybe afterwards he could kick Kid Flash's butt at some video games. And then maybe have some fun messing with his other teammates.

As he was about to jump into the alley with the 'Out-of-order' telephone booth, he noticed Artemis was already there and preparing to enter.

Huh. Déjà vu, much?

"Heeeeey Artemis!" he greeted oh-so-sweetly, jumping down behind her. He grinned.

Artemis jumped slightly, but kept her composure. Mostly. "Robin! Hi! Hi, Robin." She looked incredibly anxious.

"Visiting your…who was it…cousin, in Gotham, again?" he said, keeping his grin. Messing with Artemis was always fun, at school or on the team. She was so terrible at lying. If someone had tried to tell him Artemis was a mole, he would laugh at their face, and that wasn't just because he knew for a fact that she wasn't.

"Uuuh, yeah, yes, I am, visiting her, my cousin, I mean," she stuttered out in response. Robin wanted so desperately to laugh. "Do you…wanna go first?" she deflected the conversation to the zeta teleporter next to them.

"After the last time? No thanks," he said. "But I trust you'll be able handle it this time around?"

"Don't even _joke_," Artemis snapped at him, opening the door to the phone booth with a squeak. "You and M'gann nearly _died_, or do you not remember?"

"I was _perfectly_ fine, had it all under control," he said quickly. "Like I said, I pretended to drown before I actually did! I just, you know…happened to black out…"

Artemis huffed and rolled her eyes, then closed the squeaky door. -_Recognized: Artemis, B-07-_ rang out into the alley, and Robin sighed.

'_Ah, well, time to get training over with…'_ Robin thought, and he entered the phone booth after her.

* * *

><p>Training went well. They each got some one-on-one with Black Canary before they paired off and sparred. Captain Atom was their supervisor at the moment, and Captain Marvel was floating around the mountain, still refusing to leave for some strange reason.<p>

Robin was sparring with Miss Martian, who was getting better at not using her powers during training. He had wanted to totally beat on whoever he sparred with, but he had been expecting Wally, and he just couldn't bring himself to take his frustration out on Miss M. So he just bottled it up and kept encouraging her as they sparred.

Before they could finish up, however, the zeta tubes rang out _–Recognized: Batman, 02 – _.They didn't stop fighting as the man in black entered the mountain, but as soon as Robin saw the look on Batman's face, he knew what was up. And he didn't know how he felt about it.

"Team, I've got a mission for you," he said, and all fighting stopped.

"Seriously? Sweet!" Kid Flash exclaimed. Artemis lightly socked him in the shoulder as she walked past him to get in formation for the mission briefing. "Ow!" Robin giggled softly at his pain, and Aqualad gave him a gentle shove to get him to stop. Ah, teamwork.

To be honest, he didn't feel excited for a mission. In fact, he felt like Batman might be doing this just to get him out of the way so that he could search for Zucco alone. To keep him _busy_. Which got Robin a bit angry, but he knew in the back of his mind that that probably wasn't the case.

Batman brought out his hologram activator and a screen popped up in front of them. It showed a picture of a run-down street block that appeared not just abandoned, but decimated.

"Yesterday, the slums of Los Angeles experienced what the authorities pinned as an earthquake," Batman said, and made more pictures of the same street block from different angles pop up around the first picture, along with newspaper articles with headlines pertaining to an earthquake.

"However, it's obvious that this particular brand of destruction was caused by something else entirely. First of all, no scientific apparatus measured any seismic activity in the area of the magnitude that would cause this kind of destruction. Second of all," more pictures popped up the air, these more close-up to the actual destruction. Some buildings nearby were completely fine. "It only took out a few street blocks. The rest of the slums are perfectly intact." As more pictures popped up, a third fact soon became obvious.

"_That_ certainly wasn't caused by an earthquake," said Robin. They were looking at street-view picture of one of the less completely destroyed sections of the block. The buildings had gaping holes punched through them, but hadn't quite collapsed on themselves like most of the other buildings had. There were also craters and scars in the street pavement, and a beat-up car lying on its hood lay near the edge of the picture.

"Exactly," said Batman.

"It looks like a metahuman blazed through there, or something," said Superboy.

"You sure it wasn't just some super-human battle that the police tried to cover up?" Artemis asked.

"We have our suspicions, but we can't be sure," said Batman.

"So you want us to find out what happened?" Kid Flash said, sounding irritated. "This is practically a no-brainer! Are you seriously dumping this on us? Why doesn't the League just investigate themselves? It's not like there's anything covert about _that_," he pointed to the huge amounts of destruction displayed on the screens. Artemis punched him hard in the shoulder. "_Ow!_ Would you stop doing that?"

"Shut _up_, Kid _Mouth_," she muttered to him, venom in her voice. "There's obviously _more_."

"Why would the authorities try to pass _that_ off as an earthquake?" asked Miss Martian. "It's not like metahuman battles are a rare occurance."

"Something is not right," Aqualad concluded.

"Indeed," Batman continued. "There's that aspect. But there _is_ more to it," with a click, the pictures of the decimated city block vanished, and were replaced by various pictures of random civilians with what appeared to be some police reports written under them. More newspaper articles also appeared. "There have been some witness accounts of abandoned warehouses not blocks away from this incident being suddenly and inexplicably occupied," it seemed like there were no pictures of said warehouses to display except for those in the newspaper articles.

"Now _that's_ a coincidence," noted Robin, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Do we know who they are, what they're doing?"

"No," replied Batman. "But the chances of it having something to do with that wonton destruction and the strange behavior of the authorities are extremely high. You're team's job is to find out what is really happening in those slums, and to report back whatever you find."

"Let me guess, Recon only, 'Do Not Engage'?" Robin grumbled, angry that Batman was probably sending him clear across the country to keep him from getting to search for Zucco. How could he possibly concentrate with that on his mind?

"Ideally, yes," Batman sighed. "But knowing this team, it probably won't stay that way." All six teenagers exchanged glances with one another. "This time, try and _call us_ if you need to engage. Los Angeles doesn't need any more destruction in those slums."

"Understood, Batman," said Aqualad. "We are on our way."

The rest of the team hurried to the hanger bay, but Robin lagged behind. Both he and Batman facing away from each other, he said, "So, trying to keep me _busy_? How are things going on your end?"

"Fine," Batman replied. "You should head out."

"Whatever." Robin spat, hurrying to join the others in the bio-ship.

* * *

><p>When Robin got settled inside the bioship, he tried to concentrate on the mission at hand. Yes, he was irritated, yes, the one who murdered his family was now at large, and yes, it was a disaster, heavy on the <em>dis<em>. But his team needed him now and this _was_ seriously fishy.

So why couldn't he? He felt like he couldn't control himself, and that was _bad_, especially for a hero. He couldn't afford to mess up. He might feel better if he could let out a good scream or hit something _very hard_, but obviously that wasn't an option right now. He was almost silently hoping for their cover to be blown somehow so he could beat up some thugs or something. For now, though, all he could do was sigh and continue to be extremely antsy.

Which apparently didn't go unnoticed by the empaths in the ship with him.

_::Um, Robin…?::_ Miss Martian's voice suddenly filled the inside of his head, making him jump slightly. He suppressed a growl of irritation. _::Are…are you okay? I couldn't help but feel how incredibly…angry you are. Is something wrong?::_

_::No, Miss M, nothing's wrong…::_ he replied on impulse, sounding exasperated. He didn't really feel like talking about it, he was trying to forget. _::And a little more warning next time, please?::_

_::Oh, uh, sorry…::_ Robin saw Miss Martian's gaze shift away from him, nervously. _::Are you sure nothing's wrong? I just think that it might not be a good idea to go into a mission with such animosi– ::_

"Look, I'm _FINE_, okay? Now get out of my head!" he yelled out loud, without meaning to. All heads in the bio-ship snapped to look at him, and Miss Martian recoiled.

Shit.

"Sorry…" Robin muttered, trying his best to sink into his seat and become invisible. He'd just yelled at her when she was just trying to help. He needed to calm down…

"Uh, Rob? That didn't sound so fine," Kid Flash noted, looking intrigued. Superboy was glaring softly at him, seeing that he upset M'gann, and Artemis looked on with interest.

"Is something the matter, Robin?" Aqualad inquired. "Perhaps we should clear it up before we discuss tactics for the mission…"

"No, nothing is wrong, everything is just positively _turbing _and I would really appreciate it if this subject was dropped!" Robin crossed his arms in front of his chest, huffing, and feeling incredibly stubborn. God, he'd thought he could handle this…

It was becoming harder and harder to concentrate, though, because he was just so frustrated that he couldn't stop being _frustrated!_ His thoughts would keep on wandering back to the other night, running through the halls of that prison, fighting Sportsmaster while outnumbered two to three, and remembering Tony Zucco's face all those years ago when he and Batman had finally tracked him down and brought him to justice.

Or had they? Had he really gotten justice?

Robin shook his head violently to stop himself from thinking of _that night_. This was no place or situation to think about that, and no doubt M'gann was tapping into his every emotion. Instead, he focused on some breathing exercises Batman had taught him. Maybe meditating would help. It seemed his teammates had taken his advice and dropped the subject, so Robin was treated to some nice peace and quiet in which he could meditate away his bad mood.

Soon enough, when Robin was finally calm and they were passing over the Nevada/California border, Aqualad roused everyone and discussed their game plan.

* * *

><p>Alright, I'm not sure if I'm being too vague or too obvious with what's going to happen…or if I'm just rambling uselessly. If you read the prompt on the YJ Anon Meme you'd probably be able to guess what's going to happen easily enough, I suppose. XD<p>

And don't worry, Artemis is going to take a more prominent role next chapter! I'll feel stupid writing the climax otherwise.

God, I am just so worried about posting this too early! I feel like I'm half winging this, half taking too long…and not beta-ing at _all_. (If anyone wants to beta the next chapter, feel free to message me or something….)

Just to let you know, although the plot may seem all mysterious and stuff, it's not complicated and long. I just wanted it to have a similar feel to the actual show, and the actual show has _all_ these little things going on that you don't notice and it's absolute genius when you start looking for them…

So, yeah. Next update could either come very soon or not-so-soon, depending on how much I feel like procrastinating on my homework and college applications! XD


	3. Investigation

After Miss Martian parked the camouflaged bio-ship on top of a sturdy-looking building, all six teen heroes exited and proceeded to split into two groups. Aqualad, Superboy, and Miss Martian went to go investigate the 'earthquake' site, while Robin, Kid Flash, and Artemis went to investigate the mysteriously occupied warehouses in the opposite direction.

Artemis normally wouldn't volunteer to be on the same team as _Wally,_ but if she hadn't gone, Miss Martian would have, and it was obvious that M'gann still felt the sting from Robin's remark earlier. It was really unlike him, and as well meaning as the martian girl was, the dark cloud raining on the Boy Wonder's parade was obviously of the type that would only be further irritated by pushy friends who wanted to 'help'.

Yeah. She knew that feeling. When you had secrets, as Robin obviously did, it got annoying when people kept trying to get them out of you. A secret is something you _don't want people to know_, so why even ask? Often times, you really are better off not knowing.

But any amount of empathy Artemis had for Robin was slowly being eaten away by her desire to _smack him silly_ and ask him what the hell was wrong with him. Not only did he snap at M'gann, and he _never_ snaps at M'gann, but he seemed to be continuously losing his cool with Wally and just barely regaining it. This from the kid who normally took everything in stride, who kept perfectly calm in the face of fiery-watery death against unrelenting machines and also helped keep _her _calm when she was about ready to curl up in a ball and cry.

At least now she could see exactly how Robin and Batman were any kind of compatible.

The three of them were making their way down the thinning streets, using the night as their cover, towards the warehouses that Robin was tracking with his data-glove. Normally, they would try and be quiet, but now that they were out of M'gann's telepathic range…

"Hey, Rob…"

"You ever look up the word _covert_ in the dictionary, KF?"

"Oh, come on, there's nobody even around!"

"Obviously not, otherwise we wouldn't be here, now would we?"

Artemis took this opportunity to take her frustration at Robin's frustration out on Wally. Because she could.

"OW! What was that for?"

"For you to shut your trap! We're almost there!"

They kept walking, Robin keeping his gaze off of them and onto his holographic computer screen. Before they rounded a corner, he quickly stuck out his arm to indicate that they stop, and gestured upwards. They took the hint.

Kid Flash took Robin's arm as he shot out his grappling hook to a building across the street, and Artemis shot a grapple arrow in the same general location, following behind them. They landed on the somewhat rundown rooftop of a three-story building across the street from the warehouses, where they could start scouting out the location nicely.

Kid Flash immediately used his goggles to do an infrared scan of the three warehouses. "Those witness reports were right," he reported, "lots of people in there. Looks to me like they're standing guard or something. Patrolling, maybe."

"I see the guards out front there," said Robin, who had taken out something that looked vaguely like binoculars, but obviously far more sophisticated. "Not that many. We can take them out quietly and sneak in easy."

Artemis nodded and knocked an arrow in her bow. Robin gestured to Wally towards the warehouses, indicating that he should zip over there once the guards were taken out. He also tapped his ear, which meant to stay connected by comm-link, since they won't be together once in.

Robin was really taking charge. Artemis wondered if this was anything like how he worked with Batman – rarely talking, just _knowing_.

She stopped wondering, though, when she concentrated on aiming her bow. She shot two arrows, each hitting their mark in the general vicinity of guards. One in the midst of three who were walking by each other, and one by the wall of two who were standing and chatting, apparently. All five went on alert, but not for long, as knock-out gas quickly came spurting out from the arrowheads. They all coughed and spluttered for a few seconds before falling to the ground, unconscious.

All was quiet, and Artemis felt a small gust of wind whip by her as Kid Flash dashed down their building and went for the warehouses. The black of his stealth-tech suit helped him blend in easily to the shadows as he rushed in.

"Alright, KF," said Robin, holding his index finger to his ear to activate his comm. link. "You investigate the building and find me a computer or some place where I can hack into whatever system or security they probably have up. I'll track your location when you find one." After a moment, he added. "And _keep your cover at all times_. There are only three of us, and as you know, none of us are going to be very good against an army of thugs."

Artemis could vaguely here the _"yeah, yeah, I got it."_ From Wally's end of the comm. before Robin removed his finger from his ear and turned on his data-glove once more. There was a brief moment of silence as Robin seemed to ignore her, and Artemis couldn't help but feel antsy.

"Um…what are we…?"

"Gimme a second, and we'll head on over there and tie up those guards." Text scrolled down Robin's holographic screen which seemed to take up all of Robin's attention. Artemis was vaguely reminded of the awkwardness she normally felt when training with her father. He always seemed irritated at her, first starting out, because she was new and inexperienced…

Oh. Speaking of her father, she remembered hearing on the news that he'd broken out of prison. She'd also known when he had been arrested, and although she generally tried to convince herself that she didn't care, it still left a bad feeling in her stomach. Now, though, Artemis was mostly wondering why he allowed himself to be arrested in the first place, and what he was doing now that he was out.

Now that she thought about it, a lot of convicts had escaped in that jail break. She couldn't quite remember the number from the news report, but it had been a lot, and only a few had been found since then. Maybe that's what had Robin on edge? After all, he and Batman _had_ been there. But no, that didn't make sense…Robin would have laughed it off and said something like 'we'll round them up in no time, no sweat!' The jail break might get _Batman_ on edge, because, well, he was always on edge, but not Robin. Scratch that idea, then.

Artemis was entertaining the idea that maybe the Dynamic Duo had gotten into some sort of argument when Robin suddenly disappeared. Confused, she stupidly said "Robin, whered' you-oh." she remembered what Robin had told her and proceeded to shoot a grapple arrow to get her down from the three-story building and across the street.

Robin was already there and was nearly finished tying up the guards. "Took you long enough," he said, finishing up and getting to his feet.

"Well, you could _try_ giving me some warning next time." She retorted, still irritated at the tone he was taking with everybody today with seemingly no cause. However, instead of listening to her, Robin was already moving away from her, slinking into the shadows and taking out his grappling hook. Artemis huffed and suppressed a growl. "…_or_ you could just ignore me. I guess _that works too_…!" She took off after him, following him to where he was pressed flat against the wall next to the second-story window at the front of the warehouse.

"What are we doing?" Artemis whispered next to him, and she thought she saw Robin stiffen before he looked over at her with a tiny, irritated scowl on his face.

"Scouting out the area, duh." He looked away from her, and ever so carefully peered down into the warehouse through the window.

"Oh, well _excuse me_ for not being able to read your mind, you –" she was cut off from insulting him by a beeping from her comm. link. Both she and Robin put their fingers to their ears to listen in.

"_Okay, guys, I found something super suspicious that I think you should come check out…"_ Wally's voice drifted into their ears, and he sounded slightly spooked.

"Does it involve a computer?" Robin whispered.

"_Oh, uh, I suppose it does. I haven't actually found one, but it looks like there's gotta be one somewhere around here…"_

Robin looked like he might be rolling his eyes, but Artemis couldn't tell for his mask. "I guess that'll have to do. Tracking your location now, so don't move around too much." He turned on his holographic screen, on which were three blinking dots. The two close to each other Artemis could only assume were her and Robin, while the lone dot was Wally. She followed Robin quietly, keeping an arrow knocked and watching his back as his hands and attention were a bit occupied.

They found an inconspicuous way in through the roof and made their way down some steps and through a hallway. There were windows in the hallway that gave of view of the main storage area that had more than a few goons in it, so they had to duck underneath them frequently to avoid being seen.

"_Anyway, guys, I found a manhole-trap-door-secret-staircase kinda thing that I'm pretty sure leads underground. Although I might already be underground…I think I went down a few flights of stairs, so…"_

"Down?" Artemis whispered. Robin didn't acknowledge her.

The hallway looked by all rights to just go around the back of the large warehouse, but there was indeed a set of stairs that was out-of-the-way enough to not be immediately noticeable in the dim lighting.

"Inconspicuously hidden staircases in an 'abandoned' warehouse," Robin murmured. "add that to the guards patrolling the place, and the 'suspicious' score is pretty high."

Before Artemis could comment, they heard footsteps coming from behind them. Robin hurriedly whispered "Go!" at her, and they both ran down the staircase, trying to make as little sound as possible. There were more flights of stairs, and they went down enough flights to definitely take them underground. The hallway the staircase ended at only had one direction to head into, the left, and had even worse lighting than the hallway some four stories above.

Robin could tell from the flashing dots on his data-glove display that they were close to Kid Flash's location. The hallway had widened some, and there were a few doors that lead into rooms visible through more windows. Robin stopped her and pointed up. There were security cameras. Uh-oh.

"KF, did you notice the security cameras on your way there?" Rob whispered into his comm. unit.

"_Yeah, but I sped by them so they couldn't see me," _Wally replied in their ears. _"I'd watch out for guards, though, I think there are a few down here_."

"What's with this hallway, anyway?" Artemis asked. "The warehouse isn't even close to this big. Where are we?"

"I bet it connects the three warehouses together," said Robin, who was looking at the cameras with a troubled look on his face. "KF, I really wish you could have found me a computer."

"_I couldn't stop to smell the roses, dude, had to get out of the way of the cameras. I'm sure there might be one in one of those rooms, though."_

"Alright, we'll check it out. I'll find a computer and get the floor plan for this place and hack into the security. You go down whatever staircase you found and keep investigating. And remember –"

"_Keep my cover, yeah, I got it."_

The comm. line went quiet and Robin continued to look around. Artemis looked around a bit too, trying to see how they could move without getting seen by the security cameras. She looked up and spotted some grating high up on the wall.

"Hey, Robin," she said, tugging on his cape. He looked at her, with irritation still written all over his face, but she ignored it and pointed at the grating.

"Oh, _duh_," he said, and she could tell he honestly felt stupid. "Geez, something's wrong with me…" he rubbed his temples for a second and sighed.

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Artemis muttered under her breath, but Robin didn't hear her.

* * *

><p>Wally peered down the eerie-looking staircase he'd uncovered. He hadn't actually uncovered it; some lady in a white lab coat had done it. He hid quickly when she walked by, and watched as she opened up a panel on the wall, slid a card into the slot that appeared, and entered a code into the keypad next to it. After that, part of the floor had slid away to reveal what looked like a stone staircase. The lady had gone down it and the floor started to close up again, but Wally thought fast and grabbed a box that was lying among others of its kind in a corner, using it to jam the trap-door-thing.<p>

He would have gone down it, but he didn't know what was down there, and there just seemed to be something foreboding about whatever was. The whole situation felt surreal, like déjà vu. Like Cadmus all over again.

Which, all things considered, should be plenty of reason to go down and investigate. He had figured that he should wait for Rob before going in, but now that he had the okay he supposed he had to go in without him. Ugh. At least he wouldn't have to deal with Artemis.

Wally squeezed through the gap he'd kept in the floor and managed to slide down some steps on his butt (awkward much?) until he could stand. The lighting was still poor down here, but the lights that _were_ there were higher-quality and actually built into the ceiling.

This place was definitely bigger than the warehouse, and no doubt ran for a while underneath all three of them. There were several hallways adjacent to the one he was walking down, all of which were in better repair than most of the warehouses above.

Wally watched out for cameras as he explored, making sure to speed by any he saw. He stopped when his comm. link beeped at him.

"_Alright Wally, I hacked into the security system and put all the cameras on a loop." _Robin's voice assured him. "_By the way, that underground part you're in is relatively big, but there's a part that's sectioned off for some reason."_

"Guide me there?" Wally asked, looking around him.

"_Take a right down at the end of the hall you're in…"_

Robin guiding him, Wally almost immediately began to see things changing. Parts of the hallways started to look damaged, and said damage continued to worsen until he found an area that was almost completely collapsed. It was sectioned off with red tape, and Wally could tell that it probably lead all the way up to the surface.

He moved to tell Robin. _"_Dude, this part's completely collapsed, you have to come down and see this-"

"_Watch out, KF, guards coming your way at 9'o-clock!"_ came the urgent response.

Wally reacted quickly, racing back the way he came and zipping down random corridors to keep serious distance between him and those guards. There weren't many places to hide down here – plenty of doors that obviously led to rooms, but he didn't want to run the risk of anybody being _in_ those rooms. When he stopped, he noticed something different about where he was.

The doors looked far more…important, and had little windows in him that let him see that there was some _serious_ scientific equipment in there. He should have expected something like this from seeing that woman in that lab coat, but now he had to check it out. He carefully opened one and entered, inspecting the room.

It was big, and had a lot of equipment. It was long as well, and went down for a ways. Wally took a little time to examine the equipment in the room, but it all seemed to be simple monitoring equipment, along with what looked like specialized measuring equipment and such. Instead of looking into them more, though he could have, he decided the glass walls he could see in the distance were far more interesting. He sped over to them, wondering what on earth they could be.

"…Rob, I think I found it."

"_It? What do you mean 'it?'"_

The glass walls were windows into large, completely white and brightly-lit rooms, and inside each was a huge _beast_. Familiar-looking beasts, too. They had all the signs of the Kobra-venom they'd been encountering so much on their missions. Some were human-looking, obviously people transformed by the super-drug, and others were animals like the ones they'd fought in India. Some looked very unhappy and relatively hurt, while others looked subdued. The subdued ones all had collars on them like the collars from Belle-rev.

"IT, as in the Kobra-venom junked up super-monsters that probably trashed those hallways _and_ caused that 'earthquake'." Wally said frantically, eyes wide with both shock and amazement. No doubt there were more of these guys down here. "This whole place must be for experimenting with the Venom-"

There was a noise behind him, and Wally whipped around quickly. The same lady from before was standing there, both anger and shock written on her face.

"…shit." Wally muttered, and he disconnected his comm. with Robin.

"Who are you? What are you doing in here?" she shouted, taking out what looked to be some kind of communicator from her pocket.

"No, _wait_!" Wally shouted. He lunged.

* * *

><p>Robin and Artemis had used the air vents to make their way into a room with a computer, and Robin quickly went to work hacking into the security system. Artemis stood guard behind him, keeping an arrow knocked slackly in her bow just in case.<p>

Once he had gotten absorbed in the mission, it had gotten easier to distract himself from thinking unnecessary things. He wasn't in a very tolerant mood, however, and had initially sent Kid Flash away just so he wouldn't have to deal with both his prying and his tendency to bicker with Artemis.

Kid Flash was his best friend, yes, and while he normally loved messing with Wally, he just…didn't want to deal with him right now. He'd rather be elsewhere, and he wanted to get this mission over with. So he immediately told Wally once he'd disabled security, and gave him directions to investigate the weird cut-off part of the map.

As he guided Wally and warned him about the guards, he looked up more info on what was going down in this warehouse. The first suspicious things were obviously that the warehouses were occupied and connected underground, and had some sort of facility underneath as well. Not nearly Cadmus-scale, not even close, but sizeable enough that it's mere existence implied outside help.

Artemis looked over his shoulder. "Geez! Look at this place! There's no way the authorities wouldn't know about somebody building this here," she said.

"Not if they were bribed. Or more likely corrupted. Which might explain why the police tried to cover up all that damage to the slums." Robin said, and he continued to look through files. "But why the guards and cover-up? Why is part of the underground collapsed? What's all this _for?"_

"Doesn't it say anything in there?" Artemis asked him.

"It probably does, but I don't have any idea what to look for," he replied. This was frustrating. What on earth _was_ all this? Why couldn't this be more simple, something they could finish within the hour and be done with?

"Well, what about the guards? If they're hired help or something, shouldn't there be info on them in there?" Artemis proposed. "They can't all be corrupt cops."

"You'd be surprised," Robin said, but he looked it up anyway. "Well, this is interesting…they've got a lot of info on these guys, actually…" Robin scrolled through the lists. They all had names and mug-shots, and something else for a 'new alias' that some of them had but others didn't.

"Wait a second," Robin said. He recognized those faces. And the names. "Most of these are escaped convicts from the jail-break in Gotham a few nights ago!"

"_What_?" Artemis said, shocked. "Are you serious? Are you _sure_?" She looked over his shoulder at the names.

"Positive," Robin replied. He'd looked up and down the list of escapees probably a hundred times after he saw Zucco was on it, and while not all of them were here, there was more than a few of them.

And at that, something sparked inside of Robin. Maybe…maybe, just maybe…he looked down the long list of names, having something that felt like hope well up within his chest as he did so. He kept reading familiar names, but he didn't care about any of them, just about getting all the way down the alphabet to Z…

His comm link beeped, and he angrily thrust his finger into his ear. Why _now?_ He was almost there! _"Rob, I think I found it_."

"It? What do you mean 'it'?" If this was something stupid, Robin swore he'd strangle the speedster. If not now, eventually.

_"IT, as in the Kobra-venom junked up super-monsters that probably trashed those hallways and caused that 'earthquake'. This whole place must be for experimenting with the Venom-"_

Robin could not possibly take all that info in. _What?_ Was all he could think, which Artemis voiced after hearing it, but he was too focused on the names in front of him to truly absorb it or bring himself to care. '_Come on, Z…Z…Z…!'_ he thought.

Robin heard a _"Shit!"_ come from Wally's end of the comm. before it disconnected. That wasn't good. But he was at U…!

Almost immediately, the entire place erupted with alarms. Artemis was frantic. "Robin, we've gotta get out of here! Where do we go?" She shouted, and several pairs of running footsteps could be heard, all going to inevitably run down the hallway connected to the room they were in.

"_Sorry, Rob!"_ he heard Wally say in his comm. link. _"There was this lady…!"_

"Shut up, both of you!" He yelled. Why was all of this happening now? Robin was trying to gather up his determination to look away from the screen, but he just couldn't. He wouldn't let Zucco get away from him, not if he was so close, not if he could _find him and give him what he deserved_… "Just a little more time!"

"Not really an option, Robin!" Artemis yelled, and she yanked him away from the computer. The escaped-convicts-now-guards were almost upon them, and as much as Robin hated it, every instinct Batman ever taught him screamed at him to move, so he took control of his own feet and ran.

* * *

><p>I'm posting this now to get it out of the way, but I think it's kinda bad. It feels really slow to me - maybe not to you guys? I dunno. I feel like there's a lot of useless padding that I don't know how to fix or re-write since I'm not really that good of a writer, all things considered...I'm bad at describing things, since I'm more of a picture person. So sorry if descriptions and things are too vague and confusing!<p>

Alright, no more chapters for a week, at least, since I've got College applications due in that week and I have to get my art portfolio together! DX I can't allow myself to procrastinate on it, since this is super duper important for my future and everything, even if the next chapter is kind of the climax and the thing that I've wanted to write the most for this whole thing.

So, no new chapters for a little while. BUT, good news is, it'll have a week to stew in my head, so it'll probably be the best thing I've written ever! XD

Until then, wish me luck on my college applications, and leave me some reviews so I know how to make the next chapter better than this one!


	4. Confrontations

Artemis followed Robin as they ran out of the little room they'd been in, almost too late. She would have thought more about how shocking it was for Robin to actually scream in anger at his teammates to 'shut up', if it were not for the fact that they were pretty much running for their lives. They were practically trapped in this narrow hallway; the only ways out were up the stairs or through the air vents. They would have taken the air vents if it weren't evident that they took a 90-degree turn upwards for three stories and were utterly impassable.

But she trusted Robin to find them a way out. Even as she thought that, he started yelling at Kid Flash through his comm. "KF, don't try and come up! Find some way to get out of their before the guards get to you, go and find the others, lead them here, we need backup!" They turned a corner in the hallway only to find themselves face-to-face with several thug-looking 'guards', or rather, escaped convicts.

"Shit," said Robin under his breath, and Artemis, not knowing what else to do, quickly aimed an arrow at the group, who had started to run at them, guns at the ready. Before she could fire, Robin ran in front of her and threw something onto the ground. Smoke erupted from under them, quickly filling the hall and reducing visibility to nearly nothing.

For a moment, she panicked, not knowing where to run, but she felt a gloved hand grab hers and pull her away. She let the owner of the hand guide her without hesitation, trusting them completely. "Hold onto me, now!" she heard Robin mutter urgently as she felt her feet come in contact with stairs. Artemis complied, wrapping her arms around his waist, and she felt herself pulled into the air by grapple line alongside the Boy wonder, bypassing the need to climb the stairs. As they rose, the smoke cleared and Artemis was able to glimpse Robin's steeled, determined face before they reached the top of the stairwell, swinging around the handrail briefly before landing in a crouch.

"What do we do now?" Artemis asked Robin as they quickly hid themselves underneath the stairs. They could hear commotion from below and more from the main warehouse area.

"We need backup, first of all," Robin said, and he pressed his finger to his ear. "Robin to Aqualad, Robin to Aqualad!" There was a pause. "We need backup, _now_. Blew our cover. KF's coming to meet you, we've got a small army of escaped Gotham convicts on the loose here, along with stockpiles of Kobra venom and a secret underground lab filled with test subjects!" Another pause. "I'm 100% serious, and this is turning into a disaster, _heavy on the dis…_Good, and hurry!"

"What are we going to _do _about the venom?" Artemis asked him. "We can't just leave! Shouldn't we call in the league?"

Robin paused for a moment, and Artemis could somewhat make out his conflicted expression in the dim lighting. He didn't reply, but Artemis could practically see the gears in his head turning. "Well?" she pushed.

"…not yet," said Robin. "No…not yet, we're not calling in the league. We can handle this."

"Oh really?" Artemis said, panic rising in her throat, "Because last time I checked, you said yourself that we can't blaze through a whole freaking _army _of goons!"

"We have backup on the way! And would you be _quiet_, they'll be on us any-" Robin cut himself off. A shadow was being cast over them from the top of the staircase.

"Well, well, well…what do we have here?"

Artemis froze. She could recognize that voice anywhere.

"I think it's about time I put an end to your little game, kiddos. You need a time-out. _Permanently_."

Artemis looked up gazed at the masked visage of Sportsmaster. Her father.

* * *

><p>Aqualad, Miss Martian, and Superboy had spent a while examining what they could of the destroyed slum sector, trying to figure out exactly what the source could have been. They didn't find much – collapsed buildings, buildings with giant holes in their walls, streets with deep craters and other scars gouged into them, the occasional beat-up car…it was hard to pinpoint the origin of the mess, and it took them a while, as they tried to be at least slightly meticulous about it.<p>

They had used quite a lot of their time that wasn't spent being bored to tears thinking about more personal things. Connor wondered what on earth the point of this mission was, M'gann tryed to sooth him, Kaldur tried to lead while worrying about what the others were up to, and M'gann pondering what had made Robin snap at her earlier. She could tell he was angry, but over what, she didn't know.

By all appearances, everything had been going smoothly until Aqualad received a message from Robin on their comm. link.

"_Robin to Aqualad. Robin to Aqualad!"_ Finally, maybe there was some news!

"Listening. What's your status?"

"_We need backup,_ now_. Blew our cover. KF's coming to meet you, we've got a small army of escaped Gotham convicts on the loose here, along with stockpiles of Kobra Venom and a secret underground lab filled with test subjects!"_

All three non-humans gave each other surprised expressions. "Are you_ serious_?" Superboy said into the comm.

"_I'm 100% serious, and this is turning into a disaster, _heavy on the dis_!"_

"Well, we're on our way." Aqualad reported.

"_Good. And hurry!"_

There was no time to absorb the information Robin had given them. Aqualad quickly ordered them to move out back in the direction where the two teams' paths had diverged. They hadn't gotten far before Miss Martian stopped them, saying she sensed Kid Flash's mind finally inside her telepathic range.

_::Wally?:: _ she called out to him mentally. _::Can you hear me? Where are you?::_

_::Oh, I can hear you, green cheeks, and let me tell you, the sound of your voice in my head makes doing this sooo worth it.::_ she heard him reply back.

_::What do you mean?:: _Aqualad asked in the mind-link.

_::I should be out any second…ACK!...or not. I, uh…I need a little help here.::_ M'gann whirled around in the air, finally able to pinpoint Kid Flash's location. She flew over to a particularly large pile of debris from a completely destroyed building. Superboy followed her, though he didn't know what she was doing.

_::Oh my gosh! Are you under there? Don't worry, we'll get you out!::_ she said, realizing that his mental presence was coming from underneath the rubble.

_::Uh, yeah, but not exactly…can you just move all those…what are those, rocks or something? I can't see anything down here!::_

_::Don't worry, Wally! We're coming!::_ The Martian, Kryptonian, and Atlatean all set to work clearing away the huge amount of debris.

_::Sugar, I'm not the one you should be worrying about.::_ Wally replied to her frantic encouragement. i_::But I'm never climbing up three stories again, that's for sure. At least I was right about that hole in the ceiling leading all the way up to the surface! Do I rule or what? I bet my ingenuity will impress even the Boy Wonder!::_

_::What do you mean, you're not the one to worry about?::_ Superboy asked. _::And Robin said you were coming to get _us_! How did you end up down there?::_

_::One, Robin and Artemis are probably screwed unless we get to those warehouses, Two, I came UP, and Three, we need to call in the league NOW.::_

* * *

><p>Robin was sick of this, sick of everything. He couldn't call in Batman; at the slight <em>possibility<em> of Zucco being there he would send Robin away and into 'time-out' in an _instant_. He knew he was supposed to call, knew they needed more backup, knew they needed to find the venom and destroy it (in all i_three_/iwarehouses), knew they had to round up pretty much every single person in the entire area to haul them back to jail, knew that there was _no way_ the six of them could do it themselves…knew he was being stupid and selfish and completely worthy of being benched at the nearest opportunity…

But he couldn't bring himself to care. He felt as if his entire existence was a great black hole, and only when he thought of Zucco – _his pathetic face twisted in agony, in remorse, maybe even fear_ – did he feel any sort of _purpose_. Something was wrong with him…something was so goddamn wrong with him! Zucco probably wasn't even there; God knows he was probably too much of a coward to do anything like this.

Too much of a coward to work for the League of Shadows, for _Sportsmaster_, who just so happened to be chasing them down as they ran to meet a group of guards. They had managed to make it into the main warehouse area, which turned out to be a very dumb idea. There were armed guards waiting for them, and Sportsmaster on their heels. Both of them had a very good feeling that the Shadow assassin was simply toying with them, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth for now.

Robin charged at the goons, Artemis covering for him from behind by taking down three of them with arrows from afar. Robin leapt upon those that had been downed, dealing powerful blows to their heads to smash them into the ground and knock them thoroughly unconscious. As the Boy Wonder made quick work of dismantling their guns, the other four men reared their own firearms towards him. Robin quickly back-flipped away as the bullets started flying, and threw down a smoke pellet to make a quick retreat.

Artemis spotted Sportsmaster, and panic coursed through her. She was more worried about her father exposing her than she was of him hurting her and her team – her _friends_ – but both were reason to worry. So instead of engaging him, which would have been stupid, considering he taught her everything she knew, she ran past the other four goons who were focusing on Robin at the time. She ran towards the warehouse exit, just as Robin yelled at her to 'get out of the way!'.

Robin had retreated to higher ground, alighting on top of a large pile of crates which no doubt contained Kobra Venom or something equally unpleasant. Once Artemis was near the exit, he pulled out several birdarags, three to each hand, and threw them all around the warehouse. One in the midst of the goons, another in Sportsmaster's path, and the rest all embedded in various boxes around the warehouse. The goons looked around frantically for the source of weapons, but Robin had already made a bee-line for the exit, behind Artemis. Sportsmaster saw the birdarang's lights begin to flash, and did the smart thing and got himself as far away from it as possible. All the birdarangs kept flashing for a few more seconds, and in that time both he and Artemis managed to run out of the Warehouse's main entrance.

The inside of the warehouse exploded. It wasn't a huge explosion that completely devastated the whole building; no, it was several smaller explosions, all one after the other, that blew away everything inside and shook the supports of the building so badly that parts of it collapsed in on itself. The blast of the explosions knocked Robin and Artemis off their feet, flinging them onto the ground. They both got up quickly, but Artemis stopped to look back at the smoldering warehouse, surprise written all over her face.

"What the hell, Robin!" Artemis yelled at him. "There…there are _people_ in there!" she said, and brief panic swept through her gut. Her _father_ was in there…but…but she didn't care, she didn't care at _all_. He could handle himself and that was probably a problem for them, now wasn't it?

"They're fine," he said, not even looking at the building instead looking to their left at the other two warehouses. No doubt the other two had raised alarms, and the entire operation was on alert. "It's just a little fire, they can get out."

Artemis wanted to argue, because they _weren't_ coming out, what if they died in there?...but Robin was usually the one to worry about lost lives, not her. Surely, if he thought it was fine, it would be fine. And they had bigger fish to fry.

"We're going," Robin said, and he ran in the direction of the second warehouse. Artemis spared one final glance at the burning building. It wasn't completely ablaze – the inside was scorched and there were plenty of smaller fires flickering gently, but for right now nothing was out of control. She sighed and ran to follow him.

Robin was nearly at the entrance to the second warehouse when Artemis caught up to him. Before they even took a moment to examine their surroundings, Robin brought out more birdarangs and prepared to throw them. Artemis, however, looked behind him and saw something _bad._

"_Look out!"_ she yelled, and she leapt at the Boy Wonder, knocking him to the ground. A bullet soared over their heads as they rolled. There were several men hiding behind boxes, one of which had a rifle that had been trained on Robin's back. They both rolled onto their feet and ducked for cover behind more crates, breathing haggardly and bracing their bodies against their protection from the volley of bullets that followed them.

"Thanks," Robin panted.

"You're welcome," Artemis replied, a slight hint of exasperated sarcasm in her tone.

The shelling at their backs stopped, and Robin took the opportunity to peek his head around their crate to take stock of their situation. He spotted more guys than before, at least 10, probably more, before he heard sounds of gunfire and quickly ducked back behind the crate, bullets narrowly missing his head. Artemis jumped up once the bullets paused again and shot an arrow haphazardly into their midst, quickly ducking back down for cover afterwards.

"What _now?_" Artemis asked. "I can't get an angle on them with my bow if they keep firing at us!"

"Our top priority should be taking out as much of the Kobra Venom as possible," Robin said. He didn't really look at her when he said it; he had his arms resting on his knees, heels digging into the ground, and it seemed the space between his feet was far more interesting than Artemis at the moment. "_Nothing_ else…"

Robin's hands balled up into fists. He sighed, looking up and resting the back of his head against the wood of the crate. He ran his gloved hand through his hair, looking as if he was seriously contemplating something. Artemis left him alone; if he was thinking of a plan, she didn't want to interrupt.

Robin shut his eyes behind his mask, trying to breathe deep and think clearly. Now was not the time to be distracted by stray thoughts of vengeance, or to be thinking of anything else besides the mission. There was a lot at stake, and Artemis was depending on him. He had no trouble with these kinds of situations – he'd been in countless of them before, with Batman or without, and he could handle this _easily_. Once their backup came, completing the mission would be far simpler. He could accomplish nothing if all he could think about was _find Zucco find Zucco find Zucco_. He told Artemis their objective to assure himself that his selfish urges were _not worth_ compromising the mission. At all. They could do this.

Sure, and if Zucco got away, he was _fine with that._

"_Tch_," Robin chided himself, shaking his head of those thoughts. He _couldn't think about it_, it was too distracting. The goons behind them were going to run out of bullets soon, and they needed to act.

"Alright, on my signal, we make a break for the third warehouse over there," he said, pointing to the building a way's away in the direction they were facing. The middle building that they had tried to enter before was behind them, and obviously guarded too well for them to deal with it now. "We've got to keep going until-"

"Until what?" said a gruff voice above them, and both teen heroes looked up in shock, quickly readying their weapons and taking ready stances. Sportsmaster stood on top of their crate, holding a metal javelin and looking down at them wryly behind his mask. "Hide-and-seek's over, kiddos."

"NOW!" Robin yelled, and they bolted, dodging the javelin that Sportsmaster threw at them and running for their lives. Sportmaster took chase, grabbing his metal spear out of the ground as he jumped. Artemis turned her upper body around as she ran and fired an arrow in his direction, Robin throwing a birdarang at the same time. He knocked both away with his weapon easily and without pause. When they turned back around, they were greeted with at least fifteen armed goons filing into their path. The heroes screeched to a halt, preparing to run in another direction, but the men were quickly blocking off all escape routes.

It didn't take long for them to be completely surrounded. Artemis and Robin crouched back-to-back with weapons at the ready, doing their best to not get shot at. They both continuously scanned their surroundings, checking for any signs of an attack. Sportsmaster sauntered into their little ring, and Artemis could almost picture the smirk on his face.

"Now I'd say right now would be a smart time to throw your hands up and surrender," the assassin said, the mockery in his voice digging into Artemis's ears.

"As if you'll let us live?" Robin said, smirking in return. "I'm not stupid. But maybe we can negotiate something? We're both intelligent, reasonable people, aren't we?" He was stalling for time.

"Hmmm…" Sportsmaster rubbed his chin, feigning contemplation. "You know what? Nah." Artemis didn't trust herself to speak, just deepened her stance and prepared for the worst. "You kids have given me enough trouble already. Fire at will!"

At that precise moment, Robin threw down several smoke bombs and nearly completely covered the area in smoke. Several of the thugs coughed, their lungs unprepared for the sudden assault, allowing Robin and Artemis a chance to escape. Robin attempted to grapple away, Artemis in tow, but as they lifted off the ground a sharp discus flew through the air and snapped clean through the line, sending both of them crashing onto the ground.

They had no time to recover, as Sportsmaster immediately jumped on top of them through the fog, swinging a mace-hammer at Robin's head. He ducked, flipped out of the man's range and bumping into several goons in the smoke. He kicked one guy's feet out from under him, smashing his knee into his face on his way down, and threw several birdarangs to knock the guns out of three other's hands. The smoke was still clearing, and Robin took the opportunity to take out several thugs with quick and powerful kicks to the head and solar plexus. He kneed another guy in the gut and spun around, flipping in the air to smash two other guy's heads together, then threw several bolas to knock two more out of the running.

Sportsmaster came at him again as Robin kicked the thug's guns away, aiming a kick at his neck. Robin jumped up, flipping over his leg and aiming his own kick at the assassin's head. Sportsmaster's hand flew up and caught his foot before the blow landed, and he was flung to the ground by his leg. He managed to twist around and catch himself with his hands before he made impact, and he did a backwards handspring to get back onto his feet. He pulled out two semi-collapsible Eskrima sticks from his belt and swung them around in his hands, digging one into the gut of another goon and nearly breaking his rib, before charging at Sportsmaster, weapons in hand.

Everything was overcome by the sounds of battle. There was a cacophony of confused shouts and cries of pain, furious sounds of flesh on flesh, guns going off and bullets flying about, grunts of exertion and feet pounding on the ground.

Arrows pierced through the clearing fog, knocking guns out of hands, releasing bolas that ensnared more victims, making small explosions, and knocking more guys out. Artemis kept a steady flow of arrows knocked in her bow, using her legs to beat up anyone who came too close. She round-housed one goon over the head and slammed her bow into the gut of another who tried to sneak up behind her, using her momentum to swing around and kick his feet out from under him. She fired another shot into the midst of the battle, knocking away a gun that had been trained on Robin's back as he engaged her father. Before giving the goons she'd knocked down time to recover and attack her again, she ran over to help him, shooting an arrow at Sportsmaster.

Robin wasn't faring favorably against the bulky assassin. His blows were powerful and swift – he didn't have too much of a hard time dodging, but as effectively as he could block with his Eskrima sticks, he was tiring fast. The density of his weapons helped give him a more powerful edge, but the blows he managed to land didn't do much damage. Robin could take down guys stronger than him, sure, but Sportsmaster was strong, swift, and skilled. Not nearly as agile as Robin by far, but enough to cause him serious trouble.

Sportsmaster sent several kicks his way, which Robin blocked with his Eskrima sticks and dodged away from. He tried to spin around and dig his weapons into his opponent's side, but the blow was intercepted by Sportsmaster's forearm, lessening the impact and leaving Robin wide open. Sportsmaster's other arm swung his mace-hammer directly at Robin's exposed side, and the blow hit, making him cry out in pain. Robin's hands instinctively went to his bruised side, where he could practically feel his broken rib, and in that time Sportsmaster kicked him viciously in the chest, knocking him back violently and painfully onto the ground.

Sportsmaster was immediately on top of him, pinning him to the ground between his legs and grabbing hold of his arms, twisting them, probably meaning to break them or at least dislocate his shoulders. Robin suppressed yells of protest and tried to get his feet to respond to him. Before Sportsmaster could do any serious damage, though, an arrow flew at him, forcing him to let go of Robin's arms in order to dodge it. His opponent looked to the source of the arrow, spotting Artemis running towards them, and thanks to the momentary distraction Robin was able to twist his legs up and wrap them around Sportsmaster's head. He twisted his lower body and thrust his legs downward to force his opponent's neck to snap back and the rest of his body to follow it, effectively getting Sportsmaster off of him and allowing him to roll away as the assassin took time to recover from the move.

Artemis made it over to them and helped Robin stand, supporting him as he clutched his side in pain. "You okay?" she asked him, worried.

"Just a broken rib, I'll be fine," he panted, managing to straighten himself up without her support. "How about you?" he asked.

"Fine, but I'm running out of arrows," she replied. She probably had only 5 or 6 left, and although she could make due, they may not last her long.

"Great," Robin muttered.

"Aww, isn't this touching," Sportsmaster said, and the battle paused to allow several goons to flank behind their leader, guns at the ready. While there was slight consolation in the fact that they had managed to take out at least half of the convicts, there were still plenty more where they came from and others could regain consciousness at any moment. It did not look good. "You kids put up a good fight, but it's over."

And with that, they all charged, and the two of them were not prepared. They tried to duck, to brace themselves, to run, but…

A blast of water shot at Sportsmaster, knocking him several feet away, and disorienting the other men. Robin managed to throw some birdarangs at the mob of goons, knocking down a few guns, and a black blur shot by, making the guns on the ground and in the hands of the convicts seem to disappear into thin air. Several of the men were suddenly lifted into the air and flung several feet, panicking and yelling. A cry of fury was heard as a raven-haired hulk of a boy landed violently on the ground, leaving a crater in the concrete and making the ground shake underneath him.

"What took you guys so long?" Robin yelled, grinning from ear to ear.

_::Kid Flash here doesn't have such a good sense of direction_,:: Superboy said through the mind-link, and he yelled angrily as he punched two guys in the gut and threw another one over his shoulder, sending all three flying.

_::Well I got us here, didn't I?::_ Kid Flash protested before he sped towards several goons, using his speed to give him more impact as he punched a goon in the gut, spinning around the kick another in the chest.

_::Are you unharmed_?:: Aqualad asked as he rushed in front of them, creating a shield with water to protect them from several bullets.

_::Fine, nothing too major,::_ Robin replied. _::But you're still late!::_

_::My apologies,::_ Aqualad replied, smiling. _::There's more help on the way.::_

_::You mean the League?::_ Artemis asked, relief in her voice.

Robin froze. The League was coming? But he hadn't called them...! "Why? We don't need them! We can handle this!" he shouted out loud, angrily.

"All evidence to the contrary," said a robotic voice from above them. Everyone looked up to see Red Tornado descending from the sky, wind at his beck and call.

"Red Tornado!" Miss Martian exclaimed happily. "You're here!"

"Indeed," said the robot. "I have been informed of the situation. Other league members are on their way to assist." Robin scowled from behind everyone else. He couldn't help but feel bitter, even though he tried to keep the mission top priority. "I will handle this problem. You must continue to achieve your objectives."

"Understood," said Aqualad, and he moved to take charge of the team in its entirety, leaving Robin without much of a choice in the matter.

"Oh no you don't!" yelled Sportsmaster. Red Tornado turned his head to look at the assassin just as he threw his javelin straight at the robot. Red Tornado moved to deflect it easily with a gust of wind, but as he did so it practically exploded in his face. He was knocked temporarily out of the air, and the metal of his 'face' seemed to be scorched a bit.

"Red Tornado!" Miss Martian shouted, worried. "Are you alright?"

"I am fine," replied the robot, who stood back up easily. "Do not mind me. Go and complete your mission."

Aqualad led them away from the battlefield, where Red Tornado was conjuring his element to take out practically every goon out there, including Sportsmaster.

_::Our objective is to destroy the Kobra Venom, yes?::_ Aqualad said.

_::Yeah. We took out most of the stuff in the one of the warehouses, but there's still more in the two others.::_ said Artemis.

_::They've been experimenting on people and animals underground,::_ said Kid Flash. _::No doubt a bunch of them were escaped convicts. You think the Shadows organized the break-out?::_

_::Sportsmaster had been in the prison on the night of the jailbreak.:: _added Robin,_ ::They broke him and a huge amount of the prisoners out and tried to steal sensitive government information from the prison computers. Batman and I stopped them, but even with the police's help we weren't able to contain the inmates…::_

_::The Shadows smuggled the prisoners out of Gotham to use them as raw materials for their experiments and as guards for their buy deals!::_ Kid Flash concluded. _::Geez. Talk about morbid.::_

_::I wouldn't put it past them,::_ said Artemis coldly.

They were in the third warehouse now, which was mostly empty, and proceeded to prepare the destruction of the product stored there. Robin held back, however, as his attention was caught by movement outside. Other than the sounds of Red Tornado rounding up the convicts, he could hear the sounds of stragglers.

_::Superboy, do you hear-:: _said Robin, urgently.

_::Yeah. More guys coming!::_

However, the guys Superboy was referring to were the ones filing in from the inside of the warehouse, no doubt coming from underground. There were quite a few of them, but with the whole team together they wouldn't put up too much of a fight.

Superboy took the brunt of their gunfire, easily disarming them by bending their firearms like they were pretzels. Artemis and Robin incapacitated a few with bolas and well-aimed projectiles, while the others did their part with their own powers. They made quick work of them together, and were just powering down after all the goons were incapacitated when several things happened at once.

Superboy heard the sound of an approaching projectile, yelling "Incoming!", causing the entire team to scatter. Several shuriken embedded themselves in the ground where they had previously been standing. The team went on alert, although Artemis automatically felt anxiety well up in her chest.

A red web-like substance shot out from above them, hitting Kid Flash and pinning him to the floor with a cry of shock. A huge, heavy hook on a chain threw itself in their midst, hitting Aqualad and knocking him down roughly.

"What the hell?" shouted Wally, struggling to get out of his bonds.

"Language, little boy!" said a teasing feminine voice. Three people dropped down from above, all of which they recognized. Chesire, Black Spider, and Hook – three assassins from the League of Shadows.

"_You_," said Aqualad, referring to Chesire, and his expression took on one of determination and a hint of anger.

"It's nice to see you again too!" she said in her usually mocking, playful tone. "I wish we could have come here for another playdate, but I'm afraid you've already spoiled all of the fun. Didn't your parents ever teach you not to break other people's things?"

"Didn't _your _parents ever teach you not to _kill people?_" Kid Flash shouted, still struggling to break free.

"Hmm…'fraid not," said Chesire. "But since we can't have you breaking anymore of our very _expensive_ toys, we're going to have to take you out. _So_ sorry about this!"

"No you're not," muttered Artemis under her breath.

All three assassins jumped at them at the same time, and this fight was nothing like the previous one. It was fast-paced and precise, with minimal extra noise. Instead of shouts and gunfire, there was the sound of metal hitting and sliding against metal, of grunts of exertion and attacks being blocked and dodged. Artemis and Robin, however, were not participating as much as they should.

Artemis had only three arrows left, and while she could still fight without her weapon, she wanted to get away from her sister as quickly as possible. Jade probably wouldn't give her away, but she didn't want her friends to see anything suspicious between the two of them.

Robin, however, was distracted by the voices he had heard outside. He just had a feeling in his gut that it was _important_, and he couldn't shake it. As he and Miss Martian fought off Hook near the entrance to the warehouse, his attention was halfway taken by the conversation he was hearing.

"I didn't sign up for this to go toe-to-toe with the Justice League! What if the Bat shows up?" said one of the goons.

"Yeah, let's get outta here!" said another.

"But what if they come after us? I mean, they did say we had to help them after they helped us!" said the first one.

"You idiot! Didn't you hear about what happened to Alijah and his buddies?" said a third voice. "They took 'em down to that underground place and _experimented_ on 'em! You wanna stick around so they can stick needles up your ass and do all sorts of unspeakable shit to ya?"

That voice. He _knew _that voice. Robin stopped fighting completely, all of his attention on the men outside. Miss Martian was handling Hook fine, and Kid Flash had managed to free himself; he was helping. They didn't really need him, anyway…he was running out of birdarangs, wasn't he? Yeah…Robin disappeared from the inside of the warehouse, hiding himself in the night with the shadows cast by the moon, trying to find where the voices were coming from…

"They…they really did that? I thought they was just rumors!"

"Rumors or not, I aint stickin' around to find out! Now are you twos bozos coming with me, or _not_?"

That voice was so familiar it was killing Robin on the inside. He heard the sounds of battle from inside the warehouse, and of Red Tornado rounding up the convicts…he should be doing other things, he should…

"Alright then, let's go. This way, boys!" the three men peaked their heads out from behind their hiding place, and carefully began to slink out and away from the warehouses. Robin caught sight of the one who was leading them, who had that voice he couldn't shake.

All other sounds stopped. The entire rest of the world vanished from Robin's mind. All he saw was _that man_, all he heard was _that man_, all he cared about was _that man_. He had no friends, no colleagues, no obligations, no emotions except for _revenge_.

Tony Zucco and his two lackeys escaped out into the night. Little did they know about the bird of prey who was tailing them in the shadows.

* * *

><p>JESUS WHAT IS THIS 12-page-5700-word-long monstrosity I just wrote? Augh! And here I was thinking I was getting to the meat of the thing this chapter. Nope!<p>

I just had too much fun writing those action scenes. Hopefully you tried to read as much of it as you could stand. I just couldn't write 'they fought and it was rough'. YAWN! I've been watching a lot of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City gameplay, and re-watching episodes, and I just...the combat is super interesting. Had to get into the details!

All-in-all, I like this chapter A LOT, but I needed to wrap it up towards the end so we could, you know, get to the important part. But now that we've got most of the action out of the way, we can get to the _angst._

Next chapter is underway, so shouldn't take too long to get up here! Woohoo! Tell me what you think!


	5. Closure, Disatisfaction

The struggle against the three assassins continued without Robin, something that went unnoticed for at least a little while.

Aqualad dodged yet another kunai from Cheshire, and was able to get a good look at the fighting in the warehouse. All three assassins were engaged with two of his teammates – well, except for Cheshire. Kid Flash started to notice the lack of laughter as well

_::Guys, where's Rob?::_ he said over the link as he sped out of the way of Black Spider's webs. _::Did he do the ninja thing again? Come on!::_

_::Maybe he's just trying to get ahead of us to complete the mission!::_ Miss Martian proposed, stopping Hook's giant-hook arm from hitting Artemis with her telekinesis.

_::Robin, what's your status?::_ Aqualad demanded.

There was no response for a few seconds, and the team was still preoccupied with not being killed by assassins.

_::Tracking down some convicts that were trying to escape. You guys don't really need me.::_ came the reply.

_::So you DID just disappear on us! What the heck, Rob!::_ Kid Flash said. _::We could KINDA use your help!::_

_::You'll be fine without me.::_ said Robin. He was speaking without much conviction in his voice – what he said seemed more like a statement than any sort of suggestion. _::These guys are…dangerous. I can't allow them to escape.::_

Aqualad used his water-swords to slice at Cheshire, but she dodged him easily. _::Robin, return to us! We need to complete the mission!::_

There was no response.

_::Miss Martian?::_ Aqualad asked, obviously meaning 'why isn't he responding'.

_::He's-ack!-he's blocking me out! Disconnected from his end!::_ she said, narrowly missing one of Cheshire's kunai.

_::So…he hung up on us.::_ said Superboy, who was at the moment grappling with Hook, testing out each other's strength. Superboy was winning.

_::What's with him?::_ Kid Flash said.

_::Are we really that screwed without him?::_ wondered Artemis. Something didn't feel right to her at all. She'd been watching Robin rather closely, and something was very wrong with him. He was overly irritable, more easily distracted, randomly mumbling to himself, overly serious…something had really worked him up.

Aqualad sighed. _::I suppose we can handle this until Red Tornado or another league member comes to assist, but…we'll need him back.::_

_::I'm going after him.::_ Artemis said, and she jumped to give Black Spider one final kick in the head (he dodged) before making a quick retreat. _::I'm pretty much out of arrows anyway. I won't be much help!::_

_::Artemis, wait-!:: _ Aqualad yelled in protest, but she was already out of the warehouse in pursuit. _::Just make sure to bring him back!::_ he sighed in defeat, even as he charged at Hook.

_::Roger!::_ she replied, and with that, she was gone.

* * *

><p>Robin stalked his prey quietly in the night. The three men had gotten far enough from the warehouses for the sounds of fighting to be diminished, but not enough for the light of flickering fires to stop illuminating the paved streets. One good thing about the light, though, was that it made plenty of sharp, black shadows.<p>

"Hey, Tony…d'ya even know where we're goin'?" said one of Zucco's lackeys, whose name Robin didn't know and didn't care to know.

"Wha? 'Course I do! We're going as far away from that circus of nut jobs as we can!" replied Zucco. Robin's eyes narrowed. Hmph. Could it only have been Tony to like them to a 'circus'? Perhaps this was just fate?

"But where'll we end up, do ya think?" asked the second lackey.

"Well, this place is somewhere in LA, right?" said the first lackey. "Maybe we'll go to Hollywood! Get famous!" he giggled like an idiot.

"You numbskull!" shouted Zucco, hitting the first lackey over the head. "We're convicts! Soon as anyone catches a wiff of us they'll send us straight back to jail! We gotta lay _low_!"

"But Tony," said the second lackey. "Didn't those ninjas guys give us new names and everythin'? I got my new ID card right here!" he said, and he reached into the belt around his waist to take out said card.

"What?" said Zucco, snatching the card from his hand. "You got one o' those? I didn't! Sonnova bitch!" he threw the card back at the lackey's face. "So, you're _Thomas_ now, huh, hot-shot? Too good for us with your fancy new ID, are ya?"

"Aw, come on, Tony – "

"Don't you 'come on, Tony' _me_, you sorry excuse for criminal! What'd they nab you for, killin' a _butterfly_?"

"_Naw!_ Got nabbed dealin' some drugs to a undercover cop…she was a real dame, though!"

As Robin continued to follow them, somewhat disgusted by their conversation, he accidentally made a mis-step in his footing and the bottom of his boot made a scraping sound against the pavement. It wasn't too big of a slip-up, but…

"Hey, did you hear that?" said Zucco. He stopped walking and started darting his head around his shoulder and looking around, examining his surroundings.

"Hear what?" said the first lackey.

"Maybe it's just a cat or somethin'," said 'Thomas'.

"Ooooh no, I ain't making the same mistake a second time." said Zucco, paranoia abounding. "Last time I shrugged off a noise I got jumped by the friggin' Bat!"

"Relax, Tony, I bet it was just part o' these old buildings fallin' off," said the first lackey. "You know how run-down this place is! Why don't we get a move on before anyone realizes we're gone, yeah?"

"Whatever," said Zucco, and he straightened himself up, letting down his guard. He made to keep walking forward, but at that moment something whizzed through the air and imbedded itself in the ground directly in front of his foot.

"_JESUS!_" shouted Zucco. "What the…!" he got a good look at the thing on the ground, and it took him only a second to realize what he was seeing. "No way, it's – !"

Robin jumped down from his position on a rusted metal balcony above them, cape fluttering in the night. All three men turned, scared, to see him.

"It's Robin!" shouted one of the lackeys. "Shit, that must mean-!"

"Oh, by the time I'm done with you, you'll _wish_ Batman was here," Robin said, poison dripping from his voice. He only had eyes for Zucco. He studied every crevice in his face, remembering with horrible clarity what that man had looked like as he threatened Mr. Haley for money. He compared his spooked expression to the one of fear he wore when Robin had pounced on him that first time, ready to beat him to a bloody pulp, the only thing restraining him the Dark Knight hanging back in the shadows, watching him.

But Batman wasn't here now. And the burning, vicious impulses inside him wouldn't be satisfied with just hurting him…he didn't know what would satisfy him, honestly. "Now would be a good time for you to _run_." He said, and the birdarang in the ground near Zucco started to beep, lights flashing. All three men made pathetic noises of fear and bolted.

* * *

><p>Artemis had been desperate to get out of that situation with her sister. She would have done <em>anything <em>to leave the vicinity of both Cheshire and Sportsmaster, because she was not prepared for a little 'family reunion', especially not when her teammates still knew nothing of her upbringing or…relations. She didn't want to imagine what Wally would do if Cheshire said _anything_ to hint at being her sister. The suspicion, the anger, the resentment…she didn't want to deal with that.

So when the opportunity to go search for Robin had arisen, she jumped at it. Artemis took the only plausible direction he could have gone – the one where nothing was happening – and proceeded to give chase. Not ten seconds had passed before Artemis saw a sudden explosion only a block down from where she was. It was small and relatively controlled, but still an explosion, and it could only have come from Robin. Artemis had no idea why Robin had blown something up, but it didn't sit well in her stomach, so she changed her pace from a run to a sprint to get there faster.

She reached the site of the explosion and could hear sounds of commotion nearby. She turned down an alley and saw Robin disappearing around the corner at the other end, chasing down some thug. "Hey! Robin!" she called out to him, turning the corner herself. The guy Robin was chasing didn't look very threatening – sleazy, sure, but not necessarily dangerous. The two of them ducked down another alley, Robin completely ignoring her as they ran. Artemis got to the alley they had run into, and was about to call out to Robin again (who was currently engaging the sleazy guy), when she heard a sinister 'click' behind her. She turned around to find a gun almost inches from her face.

Artemis ducked, bullet tugging on her hair as it whizzed over her head, and quickly dealt a punch-and-elbow combo into the gut of the guy who had been holding it. The grip on his gun loosened as he bent over to clutch his stomach, so she quickly kicked it out of his hand and drove her knee into his face to finish him off. There was a second guy there, brandishing another gun at her, but he seemed spooked at her display of ass-kicking and wasn't very intimidating. He frantically aimed his pistol at her, but she rushed at him with a handspring and spin-kicked the firearm out of his hands, sending it flying and clattering to the ground several feet away.

The guy panicked and threw a punch at her, which she ducked under, and then proceeded to grab his arm and throw him over her shoulder, slamming him into the alley wall and knocking the wind out of him. He wasn't out, though, so when he slowly tried to lift himself up, she grabbed his head and slammed it into the ground with a satisfying _crack_.

Now that she was free of distractions, Artemis looked to where she had last seen Robin, but found that he was gone. "_Godamnit_, Robin!" she groaned. Taking out those two guys had taken her less than a minute, so they couldn't have gotten far…

Turns out he hadn't gone far at all, because as soon as she ran down the rest of the alley and turned into the area behind the directly behind the building, he was right there.

Of all the things she had expected to see – Robin tying up the guy and grinning at her, or finishing him off swiftly and effectively, or maybe even just leaning against a wall with the guy tied underneath him waving and asking her 'what took you so long?' – she could never have expected _this._

* * *

><p>Robin had managed to chase Zucco down, separating him from his 'friends', and if Artemis's appearance did anything it helped remove them as a factor quickly enough. He'd tried to induce as much fear into the man as possible – to be truthful, he could have caught him easily without the chase, but the point had been to make him <em>desperate<em> to get away. _Scared_. And when Artemis had appeared, he was almost grateful to those two thugs for distracting her so she couldn't interfere.

But no matter how many times Robin hit him, it wasn't enough. Zucco staggered back from his last kick, clutching his stomach, and Robin fitfully punched him in the face, full-force. He felt such momentary satisfaction, feeling the murderer's nose break between his knuckles, but it dissipated quickly. Zucco yelled out in pain and clutched at his nose, scrunching up his eyes. His absolutely pitiful appearance made Robin angry. The last thing he _ever_ wanted to fill for this man was _pity_. He didn't deserve that luxury. Robin angrily grabbed Zucco by the back of his head and slammed it into his knee, eliciting another cry of pain.

And on. And on. No matter how many times he hit him, he would simply recoil and not fight back, and his grunts and cries of pain only made Robin angrier and angrier. Zucco wasn't a _victim_, why was he acting like one? Every time his punches failed to elicit any sort of satisfying reaction, it felt more and more pointless and _wrong_, and the anger and frustration just welled and twisted themselves together in knots inside of him. Every time he attacked it was like the black hole in the pit of his stomach was ripping wider and wider instead of filling up like he wanted it to; he felt like he was spiraling down into an inky blackness full of _hatred_ and _disgust_ and _dissatisfaction_ and _hopelessness._

Robin stopped his attacks, looking down at the broken man before him, bloodied and beaten. They both panted, starved for breath, and Zucco's wheezing only made him want to kick him while he was on the ground to _shut him up_. But he knew it would have been pointless, and he didn't want to hear the man _whimper_ again, as if he was some poor, innocent puppy that didn't deserve every single drop of pain he was feeling. He couldn't keep going like this. The need for some sort of vengeance, for some sort of _closure_ had only intensified in his chest, but he knew that just hurting Zucco like this wasn't enough, that it would only make it worse.

Robin stood straight, limbs shaking not from exhaustion, but from anxiety and anger. It was only as he tried to steady his trembling and recover his breath that he finally noticed Artemis several feet behind him, staring with utter shock and disbelief. He had a brief urge to talk to her, to say something, but quickly threw that idea out the window. Let her stand there. This wasn't any of her business, anyway. This was _personal_.

Zucco wasn't as pathetic as all that, it seemed, because during the pause in action he slithered his hand down to his belt and quickly took out his pistol while Robin was distracted. "Fuckin' _punk_…" he slurred under his breath, but Robin noticed what he was doing and felt his heart leap into his throat.

_Finally_.

Robin growled in fury and rushed at Zucco, kicking the gun out of his hand and letting it bounce off the alley wall, clattering uselessly to the ground. He allowed himself to ride on his momentum and grabbed Zucco by the collar of his shirt, lifting him up off the cracked pavement and slamming the back of his head into the wall.

He held his family's murderer there, not moving, their faces only centimeters apart, glaring deeply into the other man's eyes, fury coming off of him in waves. He breathed through his teeth, seething with anger, the amazing satisfaction he'd just felt slowly emptying and leaving an even bigger hole inside of him, smoldering, _festering_.

He had to do something. Something, _anything_, to make this painful chasm inside of him go away. He couldn't stop thinking about this moment, this righteous moment for _days_, and it felt nothing like what he'd wanted. He'd thought that _seeing_ Zucco with fear in his eyes would have made everything better, but it hadn't. He'd thought that being able to hurt him, hurt him like _he'd_ been hurt for all these years, would make the hurt go away. But it hadn't.

He had to go all the way. He _had_ to. Nothing…nothing else was _working_.

* * *

><p>The battle in the warehouse raged on with two of the team's members missing. The team was tired, and although it had only been about five minutes, maybe more, since Artemis had left, they were all tiring quickly.<p>

Red Tornado had finished subduing Sportsmaster and rounding up the various goons outside. He moved to help the teen heroes, but he heard another sound. A jet flew by overhead, a familiar black one, and a body was dropped from it. Red Tornado flew up to catch them, and after hearing a brief "Few, thanks!" from them, he quickly flew them down and set them on the ground.

They ran off to the third warehouse, and told Red Tornado to start dealing with the Kobra Venom in the second one.

Aqualad was hit square in the chest by Hook's metal arm, and he was knocked down heavily to the ground. He was too tired, however, to find the strength to get back up, and Miss Martian had to use her telekinesis to deflect Black Spider's webs away from him as he lay there.

Cheshire was sneaking up behind Kid Flash, poisonous twin sais poised to strike…Wally turned around, unable to avoid it…

A huge shriek reverberated around the warehouse, and the blast of sound hit Cheshire dead-on, flinging her far away from the speedster and attracting all attention to the origin of the cry.

Black Canary cracked her knuckles, smiling at the four heroes. "I heard you guys needed some help?" she said.

"Black Canary! Oh, thank goodness!" shouted Miss Martian.

Cheshire wasn't too quick to recover from her eardrums nearly bursting, but Black Spider lunged at Black Canary.

"Well, time to get down to business!" the blonde said, getting down into a ready stance.

* * *

><p>"…Robin?" Artemis asked, her voice weak, eyes still betraying her disbelief. She had to make sure that this was him, because she had <em>never<em> seen Robin like this. Ever. She could never even _imagine_ him acting anything like this. Robin could get angry, sure, irritated, frustrated, he could yell and fight and do all sorts of things like that…but Robin was always, at the very least, controlled. That had been what had saved them during the invasion of the Reds all the time ago, that made him so effective in battle. He knew what he was doing and when he fought, he did it with a smugness that showed how much he loved to do what he did.

But this? This was some monster that looked like him, because Robin didn't seethe with anger, he didn't shake with fury, he didn't punch and fight and _hurt_ just for the sake of _hurting._ Robin was understanding, the kind of kid who laughed and was smug all the time, but you could always tell he cared no matter what.

"What are you doing here?" said the boy in the mask. He voice was low and shaky. He didn't look at her, didn't move from his position.

"I came…came to find you…" she replied. "What are you…_why_ are you…?"

He didn't answer her. More time passed, and Artemis was able to get over her shock. Maybe…maybe this was what had been making him act strangely all day? Who was this guy, anyway? And despite what she thought, this was _Robin_, and he was her teammate.

"What the hell are you doing, Robin?" she asked him, feeling frustration rise into her throat. He'd been acting weird _all day _and _still _he was being cryptic with her. Well, she wouldn't be left in the dark, and she wouldn't just stand by and let him do whatever the hell he wanted. "I come looking for you and _this_ is what I find? Is _he_ really worth your goddamn time? Your team _needs you_!" She took a few steps forward and fisted her hands and her sides, trying to make more of an impression on him.

Robin continued to shake where he stood, but after a few seconds he let go of the guy's shirt. The man slid to the ground, panting and wheezing, groaning in pain. Robin turned abruptly away from her, looking down at the ground, taking a step away from his victim. She assumed he was trying to regain his composure, so she stood and waited, crossing her arms over her chest.

The guy on the ground coughed, and Robin stiffened. Something didn't feel right…Artemis took a hesitant step forward, lowering her arms. Maybe she could…?

Robin had only half-listened to her. He wanted to care, he wanted to, but right now all he could feel was this aching _emptiness_. Robin had turned away from Artemis, not wanted to look at her disapproval, but the glint of metal caught his eye.

Zucco's gun lay on the ground not a foot from where he stood.

The gun lay there, taunting him. Bruce _hated _guns. _Dick_ hated guns. But he found himself gravitating towards it…

Zucco coughed up some blood. Robin stiffened. "Kid, why dontcha…listen to the chick…? I'm s-spent…" he slurred, and Robin could just _feel_ the hint of a smirk on his marred lips.

Instantly, Robin dashed forward and picked the gun off the ground, smashed the back of Zucco's head against the wall and watched him slide down further, then stepped hard on his chest and pointed the pistol directly between his eyes.

"_Robin!_?" Artemis shouted, taken aback.

"_Shut up."_ He said, venom dripping from his shaking voice. "Don't say _another word_."

Everything froze. Zucco was looking cross-eyed down the barrel of the gun, completely terrified. Artemis couldn't believe what she was seeing. Robin had a _gun_ in his hand and was…was he really…? He'd never held a gun before. Just seeing his fingers wrapped around the pistol, finger poised on the trigger, felt so _wrong_.

"Robin…Robin stop. _Stop._ You don't know what you're doing!" she said, trying to be gentle, but…

He didn't know what he was doing? He knew exactly what he was doing. He was going to end this, once and for all.

He had wanted nothing more than to get his revenge these past few days. The desire had been sleeping within him for years after he and Batman initially put Zucco away in jail. He'd gotten justice, he'd thought, and he had been fine with that. Zucco had been taken out of sight and out of mind, and after Dick convinced Bruce to let him be Robin full-time instead of the temporary deal they'd had (to capture Zucco and that was it), his life had gotten busy and, dare he say it, fun. Happy, even. But in reality, he wasn't satisfied. He'd trained for months just so Bruce could feel like he was safe to run about the streets at night, just for the opportunity to capture his parent's killer, all for an anti-climactic scuffle and the sight of Zucco pouting as he was driven away in handcuffs. He'd thought he'd gotten _justice_. Really?

No. Where was the justice in that? _Where?_ Zucco got to live while his family didn't? Zucco got a place to sleep and three meals a day while Dick had to live through birthdays and nostalgic holidays and old anniversaries with only tombstones and comatose uncles to spend them with? Why _shouldn't_ he kill him? It…it was only _fair…_

The gun felt heavy in his hand, and he just couldn't seem to get his finger to move. Why? It should be so _easy_. Just pull the trigger. Pull the trigger and get revenge for your family. For Mom and Dad and Charlie and Aunt Cathy, for Uncle Rick in a hospital bed, one of the greatest acrobats who ever lived forever doomed to never move his limbs _again_.

"Robin, I'm serious, put the gun down! Don't be stupid! We don't _kill_! Are you an idiot? Are you…!"

He cocked the gun.

Artemis froze, all anger draining from her just as the color drained from her face. This was really happening. He was going to do it. Robin was less than a centimeter away from becoming a murderer, and what could she do? She couldn't let that happen. All those years training with her father…all the horrible things she had done flashed before her eyes. She didn't want that in her life anymore, she wanted to _protect_ people, to keep people from dying. How could she let him become like her? She couldn't.

"Robin…Robin, please, don't make me do this." She begged him as she knocked one of her last two arrows in her bow and aimed it at him. It was a regular-tip, sharp and deadly. She wouldn't…she wouldn't kill him, but…how could she fire at her friend? Her _family_? "Just…just talk to me. You don't need to do this. Tell me what's wrong, I can _help _you!"

Robin's hand was shaking violently, and his face was contorted with frustration and pain. He brought his other hand to help him hold the gun, to help steady himself.

He tried and tried to pull that trigger, but his finger wouldn't respond. He wanted to end it, he wanted real _closure_, but…even now, he felt like this wouldn't help it. Did he really want Zucco to _die_?

He had so much pent-up anger…after the social services had taken him away from his home, they'd dumped him in a juvenile detention center for a week, because there 'wasn't enough room in the orphanages' or something. More like the social worker thought that other orphans deserved it more than some _circus brat_. And throughout his miserable time there, before Commissioner Gordon and Bruce realized where he'd been put, he'd tried to sleep locked away in that dark, terrible room with bars on the windows with bruises from the beatings the other kids gave him. They teased him, taunted him, and when he'd tried to retaliate_ – "Shut up! I'm not filthy, I'm better than you! I haven't done anything wrong-!"_ – they'd hurt him, and then all involved would be roughly thrown back into their rooms to be punished for fighting.

The only thing that had kept him sane as he lay sobbing into that uncomfortable pillow was that _he hadn't done anything wrong_. This wasn't his fault. He wasn't in this hell-hole because of anything he'd done. His family wasn't dead because of him. It wasn't a _tragic accident_, it was _murder_. It wasn't his fault…it was…that man, _Tony Zucco_. It was all because of _him_ that…

The _twang_ of the wires as they came loose from their bindings. It was so sudden. Happy one moment, the next, they were _falling, falling, falling…_

_SPLAT_.

A scream. More screams. People running frantically around, but Dick only had eyes for his family, oh _god_ all the blood and _why were they so still_? '_No…no…no, please…'_ He couldn't do _anything_, he was completely powerless, helpless, _pathetic_.

All he could do was cry and scream.

Robin could feel the tears in his eyes return from remembering. He felt the lump in his throat, he was shaking uncontrollably…if he fired now, he'd probably miss…ha…how pathetic was he?

"Robin…?" Artemis said, bringing him back to the present.

Robin was _crying_. He was crying. There were tears rolling down his cheeks, escaping from underneath his mask. Artemis's arms twitched and she lowered her bow slightly. He looked so _broken_. God, what could she do? There was obviously so much more to this than she knew. If only he'd tell her…!

"God, Robin, please…just talk to me…!" she felt a lump in her own throat, but she swallowed it down.

Robin continued to not face her, tears streaming down his face, trembling violently with both his hands gripping the pistol so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. But after a moment, he screwed up his face and took a few deep breaths.

"His name's Tony Zucco," Robin said, voice trembling with emotions other than anger now. "And he…" he paused, cutting himself off, obviously struggling to say the next few words. "…he's…" the flow of tears down his face intensified.

"He's a _murderer_…"

Artemis sucked in a breath. Honestly, she was expecting it slightly. Something horrible, something terrible…but it was just so hard to imagine Robin as some sort of victim. But before today, she couldn't even imagine him having any sort of vengeful bloodlust, either. Shows how much she knew. This was a whole side of Robin that probably few people ever got to see.

"Robin…" she began, trying to choose her words carefully. She was never good at comforting, but she had to try. "I know…I know how badly you must want to do this," she said. Artemis sucked in a breath, trying to steady herself. She had to be calm. "But you don't want to _kill_ him. You want…you want revenge, but you don't want to pull that trigger. Trust me, you don't. Killing him won't make anything better, Robin. If…if Tony Zucco dies, it won't bring them back."

Robin's shaking stopped. "They aren't coming back, and…I know I didn't know them, but…I'm sure they wouldn't want you to do this. Would they want you to become like _him_?"

_Oh GOD._

Robin's eyes widened underneath his mask, and suddenly the gun in his hands felt like something terrible and _evil_ that he had to let _go_.

Every time he visited his family's graves the thoughts of what they would say to him constantly haunted him. Would they be proud? Would they disapprove? Surely they would know that he was doing the right thing, helping people so that nobody would ever have to go through what he did. So that nobody would have to lose what he did. They would understand that he never wanted to feel so helpless, so powerless, ever again. That he wanted to take charge of what happened in his life. He wouldn't allow himself to just stand by and _watch_, ever again.

His parents always told him that all life was precious, that all people had good inside them. That's why he shouldn't pick fights with the other kids, why he should always try to perform his best to bring out the good in people, why their family did what they did.

He remembered them, oh did he remember. His mother hugging him and kissing him on the cheek before their performances, calling him her 'little Robin' and sternly reminding him to be careful. His father holding him in his strong arms as they trained, but quickly their 'training' devolved into simple play with his father holding him in the air so he could pretend to fly. Charlie constantly trying to pick up girls, no matter what city they were in, and trying to divulge his 'wisdom' onto a 7-year-old Dick. Aunt Cathy showing off her favorite frilly dresses and guiding him along, teaching him how to dance. Uncle Rick ruffling his hair during one of their guitar lessons, telling him 'you're learning, sport!' and laughing with him. That feeling of flying through the air and knowing that someone was there to catch you.

They had all loved him, and had faith in him. And here he was, with a gun in his hands, about to murder someone in cold blood.

Dick steeled himself for a moment and brought the gun up, smashing the butt of the handle on Zucco's head, knocking him unconscious. Then he stood up straight and staggered backward, shaking, sobs threatening to rise in his throat at the revulsion he felt at himself. He threw the pistol away, far away, not wanting to ever touch a gun again in his life.

"What…what did I…?" he said, trembling. He continued to back away from Zucco's unconscious form, until his back hit the other alley wall. "What did I almost _do…?_"

He'd promised Bruce, sworn to him when he became Robin, that he would never take a life. Bruce hated guns, hated them because a gun had taken away his own parents life, and what had Dick been about to do? Bruce was like a second father to him. He'd done so much for him after everything had happened…paid for his family's funeral, for his uncle's medical bills, brought him up to the Commissioner and got him out of Juvi, and took him in, gave him a home, a new life…and his son had almost done the unthinkable.

Robin's back slid down the wall until he sat shakily on the cracked pavement. He pulled his knees up to his chest and brought his hands over his face, wrapping his fingers in his hair and pulling at the raven strands, the gravity of the situation still slamming into him.

Artemis watched, pain filling her chest, as Robin broke down completely and started sobbing into his knees.

"I…I…" he kept mumbling, silent sobs making his shoulders shake. The tears collected underneath his mask and loosened the gum-tape that kept it on his face. The liquid was starting to get in his eyes and he was forced to rip his mask of so he could rub them away, and he did so just as Artemis approached him cautiously.

She dropped her bow that she had long since let go taught and slowly walked toward the Boy Wonder, who was wrapped in on himself shamefully, shaking and trying desperately to stop crying. He hadn't done it, everything was fine, it was over now, so he needed to _stop…_

He felt arms wrap around him, gently and carefully. Another body sat next to his, and they leaned their head on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. Robin's crying paused for a moment so that he could tell that Artemis was holding him.

"It's okay," she whispered. "You…you did good. It's okay now." She allowed herself a small smile and gave him a reassuring squeeze. Artemis looked to see Robin's brilliant blue eyes fill again with tears, before he finally leaned into her embrace and dug his face into her chest, hiccoughing and staining her green suit with salty tears. He moved his arms from their position on his forehead and fisted them in her clothes.

Robin finally allowed himself to let go; to relieve himself of all his pent up fears and emotions. All his anger, all his hatred, all his pain and sadness. Artemis supporting him, he let himself cry into her arms.

* * *

><p>Holy shit. Holy SHIT.<p>

I just wrote this. I just sat down for pretty much 3 straight hours and wrote this, and I swear to God I started crying as my fingers flew over the keyboard. This got away from me, just as everything usually does, but I don't think I could be more satisfied with this. (Okay, I had to double back and add that part about Black Canary when I was already full into Angst-mode and was NOT in the mood for writing action, but it said what needed to be said…and broke up the angst a LITTLE bit. Meh.)

I hope you let yourself read all that and were satisfied by the end! Also, this isn't the total end. I've still got an epilogue to wrap up some of the dangling plot-points and maybe even put some Bats in there. ;3 No more angst, I don't think I could handle writing anymore angst! ACK!

I hope I didn't get too OOC, but I think I could be given some leeway due to the circumstances of the situation. I mean, revenge shit isn't the cut-and-dry 'killing people BAD' thing that most things portray it as. I mean, imagine if you had a gun in your hand and were about to pull a trigger that would send a bullet through a dude's SKULL. I mean, ACK, that's gotta be INTENSE.

Well, anyways, tell me what you think, hope you enjoyed it!


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